Robert Plant is returning to San Francisco this fall – just in time for one of the city’s biggest roots-music weekends.

The former Led Zeppelin singer is scheduled to perform Oct. 2 at the Orpheum Theatre with Saving Grace and vocalist Suzi Diant. The show is part of the group’s “Up the Sharp End” U.S. tour.

Rosie Flores, known as the “Queen of Ameripolitan,” is listed as the special guest for all dates on the tour.

The San Francisco date also falls on the opening day of Hardly Strictly Bluegrass, the free festival scheduled for Oct. 2-4 in Golden Gate Park.

Plant has not been announced as part of the festival lineup, but the timing gives Bay Area fans a rare chance to see him in town during a weekend already built around folk, country, blues, gospel and Americana.

And it wouldn’t be a surprise to see him show up in the park.

Plant has a long history with Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. He performed at the Golden Gate Park festival with Alison Krauss in 2008 and with Band of Joy in 2011. He returned in 2019 with the Sensational Space Shifters, closing their tour behind the album “Carry Fire” with a set that included reimagined Led Zeppelin songs such as “When the Levee Breaks,” “Black Dog,” “Gallows Pole” and “Ramble On.”

In a 2019 Chronicle interview before that appearance, Plant praised the festival’s wide musical reach.

“Hardly Strictly covers so much of the music that I love and the people that I’ve grown to know and really appreciate,” he said at the time.

In the meantime, fans can log on for artist presales for Plant’s Orpheum show beginning at 10 a.m. Wednesday, June 10, with general sales set for 10 a.m. Friday, June 12. R

The tour supports “Saving Grace,” Plant’s 2025 album with Dian and the band, a roots-driven project that draws from blues, folk, gospel, country and other traditions. The group includes Dian, drummer Oli Jefferson, guitarist Tony Kelsey, banjo and string player Matt Worley, and cellist Barney Morse-Brown.

The album was recorded over several years after the musicians first gathered near Plant’s home on the Welsh borderlands in 2019. Its songs include reinterpretations of material associated with Bob Mosley of Moby Grape, Blind Willie Johnson, the Low Anthem, Martha Scanlan, Sarah Siskind and others.

Plant and Saving Grace have been busy on the U.S. circuit in support of the album, with recent appearances on NPR’s “Tiny Desk” and “World Cafe,”  “CBS Saturday Morning” and “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.”

On Colbert’s show in April, the band performed “Higher Rock” from “Saving Grace” and a reworked version of Led Zeppelin’s “Ramble On.”

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This article originally published at Robert Plant to play San Francisco during Hardly Strictly weekend.